Nor did Maori skill confine itself to ornamenting the clothing of man.  The human skin supplied a fresh and peculiar field for durable decoration.  This branch of art, that of Moko or tattooing, they carried to a grotesque perfection.  Among the many legends concerning their demi-god Maui, a certain story tells how he showed them the way to tattoo by puncturing the muzzle of a dog, whence dogs went with black muzzles as men see them now.  For many generations the patterns cut and pricked on the human face and body were faithful imitations of what were believed to be Maui’s designs.  They were composed of straight lines, angles, and cross-cuts.  Later the hero Mataora taught a more graceful style which dealt in curves, spirals, volutes and scroll-work.  Apart from legend it is a matter of reasonable certitude that the Maoris brought tattooing with them from Polynesia.  Their marking instruments were virtually the same as those of their tropical cousins; both, for instance, before the iron age of the nineteenth century, often used the wing-bones of sea-birds to make their tiny chisels.  Both observed the law of tapu under which the male patients, while undergoing the process of puncturing, were sacred, immensely to their own inconvenience, for they had to dwell apart, and might not even touch food with their hands.  As to the source of the peculiar patterns used by the New Zealanders, they probably have some relation with the admirable wood-carving before mentioned.  Either the Moko artists copied the style of the skilful carvers of panels, door-posts, clubs, and the figure-heads on the prows of canoes, or the wood-carvers borrowed and reproduced the lines and curves of the Moko.  The inspiration of the patterns, whether on wood or skin, may be found in the spirals of sea-shells, the tracery on the skin of lizards and the bark of trees, and even, it may be, in the curious fluting and natural scroll-work on the tall cliffs of the calcareous clay called papa.

But, however the Moko artist learned his designs, he was a painstaking and conscientious craftsman in imprinting them on his subject.  No black-and-white draughtsman of our time, no wood-cutter, etcher, or line-engraver, worked with slower deliberation.  The outlines were first drawn with charcoal or red ochre.  Thus was the accuracy of curve and scroll-work ensured.  Then, inch by inch, the lines were cut or pricked out on the quivering, but unflinching, human copper-plate.  The blood was wiped away and the narahu (blue dye) infused.  In the course of weeks, months, or years, as leisure, wealth, or endurance permitted, the work was completed.  In no other society did the artist have his patron so completely at his mercy.  Not only was a Moko expert of true ability a rarity for whose services there was always an “effective demand,” but, if not well paid for his labours, the tattooer could make his sitter suffer in more ways than one.  He could adroitly increase the acute anguish which